


forward, forward, forward

by ignitesthestars



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Closure, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Remembrance, Spoilers, or something like it, team voltron's best attempt at
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 15:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15754134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: If there are infinite realities, then there is one where Shiro comes back, and Adam is there.It’s not that he expects it. Adam has been packed away in the lockbox of his mind since the Kerberos mission went south. Before then, if Shiro’s being honest with himself (and he can’t afford not to be these days, not with a body that isn’t his and the memory of Haggar’s magic clogging his veins).But Before Then had been the usual baggage of a bad breakup, emotional detritus that Shiro couldn’t allow to distract him on something as important as Kerberos (not when he’d put the mission first, his hunger for the stars and the infinity between them outweighing the comfortable warmth of a man who loves him). After - after, it’s self preservation.





	forward, forward, forward

If there are infinite realities, then there is one where Shiro comes back, and Adam is there.

It’s not that he expects it. Adam has been packed away in the lockbox of his mind since the Kerberos mission went south. Before then, if Shiro’s being honest with himself (and he can’t afford not to be these days, not with a body that isn’t his and the memory of Haggar’s magic clogging his veins).

But Before Then had been the usual baggage of a bad breakup, emotional detritus that Shiro couldn’t allow to distract him on something as important as Kerberos (not when he’d put the mission first, his hunger for the stars and the infinity between them outweighing the comfortable warmth of a man who loves him). After - after, it’s self preservation. Every precious thing folded up and squirrelled away, out of reach from the Galra, the trauma of the arena, the piercing yellow glow of Haggar’s gaze as she does her very best to scrape every part of him away.

Shiro’s life becomes _forward, forward, forward._ He’s treading water and if he stops moving he’ll die, and then he does die. Which turns out to require more focus and energy than he’d really anticipated in those dark moments when he’d allowed himself to consider the possibility of an end, and by the time that’s sorted out they’re heading to Earth and it’s kind of everything he can do to keep all the pieces of Shiro in one place.

So they crash land. Which, given their history and their luck, probably could have been anticipated. They’re collected by kids he recognises, taught, children who are no longer children - if not in the same way as his paladins, near enough that it makes his teeth ache right up until they pull up to the Garrison, the same-but-different. 

Damaged by the Galra, and Shiro doesn’t _love_ the way that makes him feel more at home to be honest (he is trying to be honest).

Watching his team reunite with their families gives his teeth a break and Iverson’s presence distracts him briefly from worrying about Hunk, and even when the Commander draws him aside it doesn’t occur to him to brace for impact.

“Sir?” Uneasily, he wonders if Iverson is a better actor than anticipated, if their warm welcoming was a front, if he is going to wind up strapped to another table. Iverson’s hand is on his shoulder (the bad one), and Shiro breathes through the urge to throw the man onto the floor, plotting all the ways a man with one arm can take down a soldier of Iverson’s size and skill.

“Look.” Iverson doesn’t do soft, but something in the haggard lines of his face is making its best attempt and Shiro doesn’t twig, too caught up in his violent preparations. “I won’t lie to you, kid, this one’s gonna hurt. But better you hear it from me now than pick it up from gossip around the base.”

 _Focus_. He drags his brain back into line, forces his breathing flat. Iverson’s the type to shoot from the front, not stab you in the back. Shiro also suspects, quarantine aside, that there’s a good man in there.

He still doesn’t see it coming.

“Adam West died in the the initial Galra assault against the Garrison,” Iverson says, and all of Shiro’s preparations are for nothing as the world drops out from under him.

*

(He’s glad it’s Iverson, in this reality. Somewhere out there it’s Sam Holt, and Shiro falls apart in the face of a kind man’s sorrow and compassion. Somewhere else it’s Sanda, and it’s rage that takes him to pieces instead).

*

So. The Paladins of Voltron (et al) return to Earth. They crash, or they land safely, are picked up or found by rebels or drag themselves to the Garrison under the cover of night. The reunions happen all at once, or one at a time, it doesn’t matter; Adam is there.

Off to the side, maybe. Or tapping on newly assigned quarters after all the hubbub has died down. Shiro knows this is a thought he can chase down the rabbit hole, that he can spin realities where their last argument went differently, where they were gentler, where other decisions were made, but he suspects that way madness lies (and he’s not as steady as he probably needs to be as it is).

That, and it feels unfair to Adam. A man with a gentle manner and a core of steel, because Shiro had never wanted someone who would give way before him, had never been interested in the type of man who would swallow their own needs and sit by silently and _wait_ (and isn’t it funny, or terrible, isn’t it _something_ that that’s what pulled them apart in the end?).

Shiro suspects that if there’s a reality where they stay together and he still leaves, it’s one where one or both of them have changed enough to have no place in whatever closure he’s seeking here.

(‘Here’ is in front of the cenotaph. ‘Here’ is after Sendak is dead and the occupation over and the work, if not done, has slowed enough to leave him with space to think. ‘Here’ is Adam’s name wrought in metal, warming under his remaining fingers).

Adam is there and it’s like being punched in the gut in every reality, a flood of warmth and anxiety sweeping through his body despite it technically never having met the man--

(And here is where his grief throws him right out of his own head and he stares glassily at the ceiling for fuck knows how long because he lives in a body that has never touched Adam, never held him, never _known_ him, and there is no processing that information. There just isn’t).

*

Shiro settles on the thought of realising he’s being watched, of seeing blonde hair and tawny skin through the crowd of someone else’s family, of leaving Keith to deal with Iverson and taking his first steps towards the man who had said he wouldn’t be there.

‘There’, he thinks, has changed rather significantly since the time before the Kerberos mission. If nothing else, he probably had more arms in that reality.

Shiro gets to within a few feet of the other man before his legs stop working, the weight of everything that has happened in the past few years sitting between them like a literal wall. How do you greet someone who you loved, who you had imagined a life with, who you had decided to leave but not like this - not for so long, not to return in so many pieces with parts missing.

“Adam,” he says helplessly, voice rough. Somewhere in the part of him that is always scanning for threats, he’s aware of the other paladins realising something is up, bloodhounds catching a scent. Or teenagers sensing relationship drama.

Well, most of them. Lance, thankfully, is still covered in extended family.

Adam drinks him in, expression unreadable other than his clear noting of Shiro’s myriad physical changes. And then he sighs, and there’s an entire world in that one exhale, fond and achingly sad all at once before he closes the gap between them in two quick steps.

His wrist hooks behind Shiro’s neck, tugging his forehead down to lean against Adam’s, Shiro goes easily, willingly, closing his eyes and just - breathing. In, slowly. Out again.

“Is this where I get to say I told you so?” Adam says. “Because, Takashi - I _told_ you so.”

Shiro laughs wetly, hugging the other man as tight as he can with just one arm. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you really did.”

*

 _Don’t expect me to be here when you get back_.

* 

What happens after that? 

(Shiro tries to find a path forward, some thread of certainty to weave into this alternate tapestry, only to find that they all seem about as likely as the others. The truth is, he needs Adam here to decide what Adam would do. 

And Adam is gone).

*

They probably don’t kiss.

Not there, in front of everyone. Not later either, because later is taken up by briefings and planing and things that Adam doesn’t have clearance for. Shiro thinks he probably tells him anyway - it’s not that he’s lost respect for the chain of command so much as it no longer feels like it has any relevance to him.

“There’s that Shirogane arrogance I know and love,” Adam says, and in some realities it’s teasing and others it’s bitter and in all of them it’s been years but the word _love_ drops easily from his lips because it hadn’t been a lack of love that had ended their relationship. 

There’s no timeline where Shiro left Earth not loving Adam, none where Adam let him leave thinking it was anything other than love that meant he couldn’t be there anymore. It might not have been enough to fill the empty space the stars had left in Shiro’s chest, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

In some realities he banters back and in some it hurts. If it hurts, maybe they fight, or maybe Shiro just leaves all over again. Maybe the bits of Shiro that came back don’t fit with the bits of Adam that remained, or maybe they never did to begin with.

Or maybe - between the fighting and the planning and the looming end of the world, they talk. Adam comes to his quarters and they end up slumped on the couch, Shiro’s head on Adam’s shoulder, or Adam’s in Shiro’s lap. He toys with strands of honey-dark hair, mussing the waves this way and that as his story comes out in bits and pieces, kind of like him. Adam’s gaze, half-lidded, never leaves his face.

*

“Shiro.”

He startles at the sound of Keith’s voice in this reality, somewhere behind him to his left. His fingers trop from the cenotaph, body half twisting to catch the expression of concern flicker away to something more cautious.

“Sorry,” Shiro says automatically. “Did you need - am I missing something? I’m probably missing something.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Keith says, an it’s just as automatic. Shiro’s gaze flickers behind him, the rest of the world filtering in from a haze of possibility to reveal the rest of the paladins stacked awkwardly next to each other. “If anyone deserves a break from endless meetings it’s you. We were just worried. You’ve been here for...a while.”

Time still hasn’t settled into meaning the same thing it used to, and Shiro was good at ignoring what his body told him before he ever went to space. But he’s abruptly tired enough and hungry enough to realise that he must have been at the cenotaph for a matter of hours rather than minutes, that he should probably - eat a sandwich or something. At least to stop his friends from transforming into a group of mother hens.

“You’re right.” He forces something like a smile. “I should take a break. More of a break. Thanks, guys.”

“Shiro, wait!” 

It’s Allura, fingers closing around his prosthetic wrist. They’re a warm comfort, the haptic feedback real enough that he stops, even though he suspects he probably could have kept walking and just left the arm with her. They haven’t tested the precise distance yet (haven’t had the time).

“Obviously, if you truly wish to be alone, we will _all_ leave you be.” There’s an emphasis she places on _all_ that makes his lips twitch up, the implication that they’d had this argument before staging this little intervention. “But we wanted to tell you - we wanted to let you know--”

“You don’t have to be.” Pidge cuts to the heart of the matter, as Pidge is wont to do. He’s never quite sure if it’s because she’s uncomfortable with other people’s feelings, or just impatient.

“Yeah, man.” Hunk nods. “We’re all here for you. Or like, one of us at a time if that’s easier.”

“You can tell us about him,” Lance blurts, and maybe at the beginning of all of this it would have been insensitive, a teenage urge for gossip rearing its head at an inappropriate moment. But there’s a frantic edge to the way he says it, like he thinks or knows it will help, like he’s finally discovered the value of talking about things instead of at them and wants to make sure Shiro knows as well. “If you think it’d help, that is. Maybe it wouldn’t! But, you know. Maybe it would.”

If there are infinite realities, then there’s one where Adam is alive to meet his team. This group of incredibly brave, caring, _tenacious_ kids that have grown to be a part of his family. That, for all the bits of him left to infinity, are a part of the pieces he brought back.

He would have liked them.

“Actually.” He clears his throat, offering them another smile. Real, this time, and all of them relax. “That’d be nice.”

If there are infinite realities, then no one is ever truly gone. And even if there’s only one - he can still honour and remember Adam like this.

**Author's Note:**

> im on [tumblr](http://ignitesthestars.tumblr.com/) and also [twitter!](https://twitter.com/ignitesthestars)


End file.
